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The Evil That Men Do

In 1988 David Lynch painted "Shadow of a Twisted Hand Across My House" and in 1990 "Suddenly My House Became a Tree of Sores". They are simple childlike images painted over a dark background, reflecting the darkness and fear a child can experience within their home. When asked about the recurring theme of the house in his paintings and films, Lynch replied that rather than being concerned with global issues, he is more interested in what happens in the surrounding neighbourhood. He portrays houses so threateningly because "the home is a place where things can go wrong". (1) Lynch uses surreal, non-traditional narrative, and symbolism, to portray communities that represent a dysfunctional society at large.

After a happy childhood despite a lot of moving around, Lynch at age 19 enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia, to study art. One of his projects was to combine visual arts with cinema to make Six Figures Getting Sick (1966), a looped animation projected onto one of his sculptures. On the strength of this 'moving painting' Lynch was able to secure funding to make his first two short films The Alphabet (1968) and The Grandmother (1970). The critical success of these films, followed by a move to Los Angeles with his new wife and child, inspired Lynch to spend the next six years making his first feature, the sublime Eraserhead (1976). Partly inspired by his disgust of industrial and violent Philadelphia, and expressing many of his anxieties over having just become a father, Eraserhead remains Lynch's most personal film.

Eraserhead is a nightmare vision of a world where men control all aspects of reproduction, turning sex into a mechanised process. The result is a world of industrial decay where life is more morbid than death itself. The infamous baby in Eraserhead is not naturally conceived but created by The Man on the Planet (Jack Fisk), a deformed monster who...